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| Taming a tribal rebel leader of Assam | | | Nava Thakuria
He is notorious, selfish but extremely health and beauty-conscious -This is how a tribal militant from Assam, Jewel Garalosa, might be described. The elusive armed rebel from Northeast India was trapped by the Central Crime Branch of the Bangalore police and the Assam police team in Bangalore in the first week of June.
Jewel led Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel faction), commonly known as the Black Widow group and has for many years presided over mayhem in the North Cachar Hills district of Assam. The dreaded insurgent turned terrorist, Jewel masterminded a series of killings, kidnappings and other criminal conspiracies in the district.
According to the Assam police, Jewel led a militant’s life but one full of luxuries. The state police chief GM Srivastav claims that he spends thousands of rupees on healthcare and beauty treatments. For long, Jewel lived outside Assam, mostly in Nepal with his third wife. He had been looking to establish a hideout in Bangladesh. He even contacted Ranjan Daimary, the chief of the National Democratic Front of Boroland, who is somewhere in southern Bangladesh. In fact, the weapons for this outfit were procured by Jewel from Burma, through Mizoram.
The news of Jewel’s arrest (with his deputy commander Partha Warisa and fund-raiser Samir Rahman) from a reputed construction company's guest house on Bannerghatta Road in Bangalore, was astonishing. It was generally assumed that Jewel was camping in one of his hideouts in Assam. In the last few months, the hill district received media attention for uninterrupted killings, burning of houses and also attacks on railway trains.
But soon after his arrest, police disclosed that Jewel had been out of the state for many months. It also revealed that Jewel was operating from Kathmandu and that he held a Nepali passport as well. Jewel came to Bangalore for another fake passport. Following specific information, The Assam DGP Srivastav sent a team led by the deputy inspector GP Singh, to the Karnataka capital. The special police team had to wait in Bangalore for a week to nab Jewel, who was on his way from the Nepal capital.
Jewel, hails from a lower middle class family in Haflong, the headquarters in NC Hills. He proved to be a skilled armed leader who raised the issue of Dimaraji, a homeland for the Dimasa people. Though Dimasa is a major ethnic group in the NC Hills district of Assam, it also provides shelter to other communities like Zeme Naga, Kuki, Hmar and Karbi people. It has a sizeable number of Bengali- and Hindi-speaking people living alongside the mainstream Assamese population.
A college drop-out, Jewel (who earlier went by the name of Mihir Barman) was involved in the Dimasa National Security Force (DNSF) (launched in 1993) and later initiated the Dima Halim Daoga (DHD) in 1995. After the DHD's split (following differences with the chairman Dilip Nunisa, who entered a ceasefire agreement with New Delhi), Jewel decided to concentrate on the Black Widow. He maintained a cordial relationship with the NSCN (I-M) and also the leaders of ULFA and NDFB.
The police suspect Jewel had nearly 200 loyal armed cadres with whom he continued disruptive activities in the isolated hills district. The Black Widow is also responsible for killing no less than 100 civilians and armed force personnel in the last two years. Also among their victims was the former chief executive member of the NC Hills Autonomous District Council, Purnendu Langthasa and another executive member Nindu Langthasa. The gun-toting rebels of the banned outfit were responsible for repeatedly disrupting the 214km Lumding- Silchar railway gauge conversion works. Similarly, project officials of the 184km East-West Corridor faced a never-ending demand for ransom, and some even met with abduction and murder at the hands of DHD(J) cadres.
The cruelty of Jewel was not confined to his opponents alone. His two former wives were also exposed to atrocities by the militant leader. He had abandoned his first wife Champa Nunisa and killed his second wife Bontha Thaosen on suspicion that she had conducted an extra marital relationship with an armed force personal. His third wife is a
Nepali woman presently living in Kathmandu. On the same day Jewel was arrested in Bangalore, his closest associate Frankie Dimasa was killed in Guwahati. Frankie, who served DHD(J) as an important leader, was traced in the Bishnu Nagar Hill of the city and finally, the police eliminated the rebel in an encounter. Three of his associates, however, managed to flee under the cover of darkness.
Incidentally, the chief executive member of the NC Hills Autonomous District Council, Mohit Hojai was earlier arrested on the charge of paying money to the Black Widow. Later, another former CEM of the Council Depolal Hojai and the joint director of the social welfare department, RH Khan, were also booked under the law for financing the militants' arms purchases.
New Delhi remains worried about the recent incidents of violence in the hills district, where a nexus between politicians, bureaucrats and militants has emerged. The nexus has resulted in the re-direction of a large amount of money from the development funds towards militant groups operating in the region. The newly-launched National Investigation Agency has been entrusted with probing the issue in the trouble-torn district. Incidentally, it is the first case to be handled by the NIA in the Northeast.
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